Here is something pretty incredible: in the upcoming film projects of Pixar Animation there is one called "Dia de Los Muertos". If you live in South Cal you certainly know that Dia de Los Muertos is related to a popular religious and cultural tradition in Mexico and Central America which also become more and more popular in the U.S.
BUT, because it was supposed to be the title of this new Pixar animated movie, Disney tried to trademark the words "Dia de Los Muertos". Disney filed not less than 10 requests in the U.S. Trademark and Patent Office this month to coin the phrase. Disney's filings were mainly for merchandise, presumably connected to an upcoming film. The areas Disney was hoping to secure included “education and entertainment services,” “fruit preserves; fruit-based snack foods,” “toys, games and playthings,” “clothing,” “footwear,” “backpacks,” “clocks and jewelry” and more.
A concept-art for the upcoming Pixar animated movie, at that time still called "Dia de Los Muertos".
Although that i can understand on a corporate point of view that they try to protect their movies titles, in this case it was a bloody bad idea and what had to happen happened: as soon as the news was known many reacted angrily on social media with some accusing Disney of trying to profit from a sacred Mexican tradition. A petition was launched on change.org which got more than 21000 signatures in a few days asking "Robert A. Iger, Chairman/CEO and the entire Board of Directors to stop the procedure seeking trademark applications and their attempt to secure ‘Dia de los Muertos’ across multiple areas". And a mexican cartoonist Lalo Alcaraz, even did the cartoon at the top of this article.
In two words, this trademark filing became a big affair in just a few days and finally the mouse announced last week "that the company will be withdrawing its trademark filing". And that the Pixar animated movie will have a new title. Seriously, all this for that? They couldn't guess before filing that it was going to uproar the mexican community?
Picture: copyright Lalo Alcaraz
3 comments:
Hopefully they'll choose an interesting title, and not one of those obnoxiously-trying-to-sound-hip titles like "Tangled" or "Frozen" (or, dare I say it, "Brave").
It's incredible the stupid things that these executives do sometimes! What were they thinking?
There are tons of Dia de los Muertos merchandise in every touristic place in Mexico, and even in the area of El Pueblo in LA; were they planning to shut down all those Mexican souvenir stores selling painted skulls? I don't doubt anything else...
By the way, this skeleton Mickey poster is really awesome! I want one to hang in my house.
Marco, here is the link of the author where you can order a print of the "Muerto Mouse" poster if you wish:
http://laloalcaraz.com/disneys-trademarked-dia-de-los-muertos-muerto-mouse-signed-prints-for-sale
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